When I'm Part of Your Travel Itinerary...

...it makes my day. I feel like I’ve said this before (or maybe I wrote it in one of the many posts that never actually make it to the blog), but one of my most favorite things about living in Chicago is that there’s never too long a period of time that passes before someone I know and love is traveling to or through the area. This makes me one very happy camper, because my family and friends mean the world to me and, let's face it, at times this city of three million+ faces can be a lonely place. A good share of my visitors have been former professors, whom I hold near and dear to my heart. I love that most of them are relatively close by in Indiana, and the others travel here for conferences or hiring extravaganzas like MLA. I live in a hub of travel activity, and for all the people I get to see and will get to see, I am grateful.

So, what recent visit has inspired this spontaneous overflow of emotion (recalled in tranquility, of course)? Pat (my undergrad thesis director/good friend) and his wife Cindy are in town this week, and I hadn’t seen them since graduation (where do the years go?). We met for lunch at Tavern at the Park yesterday, on what was the most gorgeous day we’ve had in August. No rain, no stifling heat and humidity, just full sun and a cool lake breeze.

Anyway, the three of us had lunch outside under giant umbrellas, the breeze not even threatening to wreak havoc on our napkins or loose crumbs. While the food was disappointingly lackluster in my opinion (the chicken on my salad was dry, and the discs of fried goat cheese strangely bland), the comfy conversation between like-minded, good-natured people fed my appetite. There’s something so great about old friends with whom you can pick up where you left off like no time has really passed despite the years you've got to fill each other in on. Of course, an hour or so is hardly enough chance to adequately catch up on the lives of people you haven’t seen in such a long time, but it was an hour of great satisfaction. After reluctant good-byes, they headed off to the Art Institute, and I headed back to an afternoon of meetings at work.

Luckily, my string of visitors for August is just beginning, though, and I love planning all kinds of excursions and great Chicago food for my visitors, so the fun is just beginning. Since I’m going to have an excuse to do all kinds of touristy stuff, I’m sure there will be plenty of blog posts at the beginning of September about all the new things I will have experienced in this fabulous city (that is, if I have time to blog—believe it or not, I’m actually starting to get paid to write things now, so the time I have for blogging is going to have to slim down a little). Let me just say, I’m all filled up with excitement about the remainder of August. This month may actually make up for the heartbreak that was July.